


Through the Night

by nicovasnormandy



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series, 悪魔城伝説 | Castlevania lll: Dracula's Curse
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2019-01-18 13:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12388809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicovasnormandy/pseuds/nicovasnormandy
Summary: Three who do not belong together and yet, despite all odds, have made the choice to remain. Four moments of quiet between bloodshed and the battle against eternal night.





	Through the Night

**Author's Note:**

> Primarily animated 'verse, with some overt references to the original game canon liberally strewn in.

He is silent as he moves from the crushing weight of Belmont’s arm to cold freedom away from tangled legs and bunched sheets. He moves through the shadows of the room as if he belongs to them, nears the door, and pauses at the sound of shifting fabric against skin from behind. It’s a small sound, buried under Belmont’s drunken snoring, but louder to him than the symphony of cicadas playing outside the grime-strained inn window. 

“Go back to sleep.” His voice is soft, but commanding. 

“Where are you going?” Sypha asks. Her whispered effort strains to cut through the monstrous noises coming from Belmont.

“I’m not going far.” He assures in lieu of an answer. It should suffice, and so he steps out of the room without another sound. 

The moon wanes over the thatched rooves of the small community they’ve taken to hiding from the demons ravaging the south. The night is blessedly quiet, more still than any night the week previous, and he takes a moment to let the peacefulness sink in before it is disturbed by the creaking of the inn’s door.

“There are no stars.” Sypha says as she takes a spot beside him.

“There are not.” He confirms.

“Could you not sleep?” 

“I slept for a full year.” He replies with a hint of amusement. It’s impossible, but it feels as if the scar on his chest throbs at the reminder. 

“That’s not what I meant.” The conversation stalls, but the silence between them does not lack comfort.

“I just wished to clear my mind.” He says after a while. Sypha straightens from where she half-slumbers upright.

“It’s a lovely night.” She says. Her fatigue is obvious, but she shows no sign of retiring. He appreciates her character as much as he tires of it. These two—he’d never expected things to change the way they had. Certainly not due to a Speaker or the last of the Belmont line.

His mother had described her union with his father in a similar way. 

“I was certain I knew what my mission was,” she had spoken with fondness, “until someone unexpected challenged my perspective.”

Her memory leaves him with a dull ache, as it always does. It isn’t the still raw and overpowering pain experienced by his father, but it is persistent. Unforgettable.

Sypha takes his hand in her own. She’s never complained about the slightly off temperature of his skin in the brief moments he neglects to regulate himself to something comfortable, and she doesn’t now. 

“We should return.” She says after a few moments. “Trevor has probably taken the entire bed over in our absence.”

He considers what it would feel like to shift into the form of a wolf and run the countryside until the sun rises, or become a bat and truly lose himself in the night, but Sypha’s hand anchors him. Though small and seemingly frail, it is a persistent hold. A challenge of perception indeed.

“As you wish.” He says. 

He allows himself to be led back to the inn which smells of cedar and mildew. They climb the stairs quietly and enter their shared accommodations where the third member of their ragtag band is waiting for them.

“Where the ‘ell were you?” Belmont slurs. Sleep and ale have soaked his speech, and his hair is even more disheveled than usual. “Snogging in an alley?” 

“Be quiet, Trevor.” Sypha whispers, even if her reason is now awake and looking at her with glassy eyes. “Go back to sleep.”

He recalls how a similar command had been ignored not thirty minutes ago but makes no comment.

“I want a snog.” Belmont continues. His words run together and he giggles to himself. Already his eyelids are weighted and his head droops longingly to the over-hard pillow the inn provides only the “finest of travelers”.

“Of course you do.” Sypha says without heat. She releases his hand— he refuses to acknowledge the slight disappointment—and carefully pushes Belmont down by placing her palm flat against his bare chest. He submits, or so it seems, but grabs her suddenly and pulls her—flailing and cursing—into bed with him. Belatedly she tries to quiet, but Belmont’s hands find their way under her gown and he tickles her sides until she’s likely to have woken the entire village with her shrieks.

“That was necessary.” He says from where he stands inches from the bed. Reproachfully.

Belmont flashes a grin in his direction and accepts the smack to his shoulder from the short woman in his arms. He’s slipping into sleep, there’s no doubt. “Yeah. Yeah, it was.”

Sypha is red-faced and pinned down by Belmont’s arms, the top of her gown caught low in his grip and exposing the depths of her collarbone. “Adrian,” she breathes, “join us.”

He finds the he cannot deny such an earnest request. Effortlessly he folds into the too-small bed on her other side. Belmont’s snores have already filled the space of the room. As Sypha is facing him, her back pulled tight against Belmont, he places his back to her. It would be rude if she thought he was staring at her all night.

Sypha seems pleased with the arrangement. With a boldness usually reserved for men, she reaches out and implores him closer by cradling him in her lithe arms. He moves back—once more finding himself amenable to her every request—and allows her to bury her face into his hair. Soon her breathing evens and her hold slackens, but even though he does not sleep throughout the entire night, he dares not rise again.

 

-

 

She communes with the spirits and a swath of ice bursts over the burning fields. It remains solid but for a few moments until an explosion of magic sees the ice become a rain which extinguishes the flames. More than two-thirds of the field is charred and unusable, and the stink of ash is overwhelming. 

“Right, good show.” Trevor says. She wonders if he truly means it.

“Winter is coming.” She says solemnly. “There is not enough food here for the entire village.”

“No, there’s probably not.” He agrees, and she can’t comprehend how he can talk of it so casually. 

“People will starve.” She looks at him and doesn’t know what she expects. Whatever it is that she wants from him, she does not see it. “People will starve, and they will die.”

“People die.” He shrugs. “That’s just what they do.”

“But we— “

“Can’t do fuck-all about it.” He says squarely. “You did what you could. Less people will die than before. Find joy in that.”

She wants to shout at him, but Adrian has joined them before a fight can begin.

“We should keep moving.” He says as he pulls his oversized cloak tighter over himself. “The people grow restless.”

“Of course.” Trevor scoffs. “Can’t have them show any gratitude to the witch who saved their asses. No good deed, ‘innit?”

“Let’s just go.” She turns and walks away from the field and village and rallying mob. Her companions follow closely behind, as expected. They walk for hours, but the stench of burnt vegetation clings to them—to her—no matter how far they go. 

It’s almost a relief when Trevor starts arguing with (or more accurately, at) Adrian and she can focus on that instead of the charred scent which has stained her robes. It is only a momentary reprieve, and in time they fall into silence. 

“Do you wish to talk?” Adrian asks her quietly. He is at her side before she knows it, inhumanly graceful as always.

“Thank you but… no. I would rather not.” 

He accepts her decision without a word. He is there if she desires, and that is enough. It’s not until they’ve reached an outpost where they can find lodging, and ideally a carriage to take them to the next battlefield, that anyone speaks to her again.

“Let it go.” Trevor crosses his arms and leans against the mossy signpost. Adrian is procuring their room, and she is contemplating her growing need for a wash. At first, she does not respond, hoping he will turn his attention elsewhere, but when she seconds a glance in his direction he continues to observe her knowingly. 

“It’s not like it’s the first place we failed to save on this misbegotten journey.” He says, as if that will placate her. She bristles at the insinuation.

“That is the point.” She replies hotly. “It is not the first place we failed. It won’t be the last. I know that.”

“Then stop— “

“Do not tell me how I should feel.”

“Sorry, right.” He holds up his hands in supplication, but smiles as if it’s all a big joke. It angers her, but her anger is tired and frustrated, and she doesn’t let it linger like she would have yesterday or tomorrow.

Trevor pushes himself off the signpost and approaches her. She thinks to smack him away when he reaches for her, thinking he intends to treat her like an infant, but he pulls her to his chest and presses his face into her hair and she feels the embers of anger slip away. She lets herself be held, even considers returning the embrace, and leans forward into his warmth. He smells like pine and sweat and a hint of ale. He does not smell like fire or suffering or madness and she inhales his scent and lets it engulf her.

“Okay, now.” She can feel his smile against her head. “Don’t be creepy.”

“You’re one to talk.” She teases and pushes him away. He lets himself by pushed, and she can’t fight the smile on her face. It’s a first for the day, and even though the sun has set, she doesn’t feel it has come too late. “You need a wash.”

“Is that what you were checking?” His grin is lopsided. “You were getting real deep in there.”

“You are incorrigible.” She rolls her eyes, but her smile lingers. “I’m going to wash.”

“I thought I was the one who needed it.”

“Exactly. I’m sure there is room for two.”

There is a pause as he considers her words.

“Well,” he finally says with maybe a tiny hint of bashfulness, “fuck me.”

 

\- 

 

The Vampire Killer cracks the air like thunder and blitzes the neck of the foul-smelling ogre like a bolt of vicious lightning. It roars in agony, the guttural noise signed by the thrust of his sword into its bulbous stomach. He rips the sword free and the ground tremors when the giant beast collapses on its back. It is dead, but his work is not close to done.

A shrieking creature, a bizarre cross of disturbingly ample topless woman and giant bird legs, swoops towards him and he is just barely able to dive to the side to evade her eviscerating talons.

“Harpy!” Sypha shouts from somewhere behind him, and a righteous wind funnels over the she-beast and plucks it from the sky. He is back to his feet before it reaches the ground. He rushes through the flurry of oversized feathers and swings his blade wildly. If God is good, he’ll hit his mark.

One of the harpy’s legs rears back and slashes the back of his hand, taking his sword from his grip.

Fucking right.

He rears back and swings the Vampire Killer overhead through the downy haze of liberated feathers and strikes his target true. She screeches as the whip tears a gash across her face and her blood splashes across the earth. He can smell the fire Sypha has conjured to overrun some other bloodthirsty beast behind him.

He enacts the killing blow, the harpy’s dying scream drowned out by the snap of his whip.

“Jesus. Shut up.”

Dark magic, the stuff even Sypha won’t touch, spreads over the field and devours the demonic imps who prowl closer to him. Alucard hovers over the center of the spell, his hands forming complex movements different from those of a Speaker, and then he lands as the darkness fades, brandishes his sword, and rushes toward a heavy-mace wielding minotaur. 

The next ten minutes are exhausting.

When everything is dead, and he’s covered in the blood of a dozen different beasts, he hunts for his lost sword. In the corner of his eye he watches Sypha fall back, spent, and Alucard basically materialize at her side to catch her. She swoons and he can’t stop himself from rolling his eyes.

He sees the end of his sword jutted out from beneath a different ogre and huffs. As expected, it couldn’t have been something weighing less than a house. That would have been less of a pain in the ass, and the Belmont line just couldn’t have that.

He seeks out some leverage he can use to drag the corpse away. There are no tassels, buckles, or basically anything which could account for clothing for him to grasp. The ogre is just rock-solid, bulbous, flesh.

“Fuck,” he grumbles under his breath, “you’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“Do you require aid?”

He’s become used to Alucard’s penchant for moving without a sound. Even if he hadn’t, the way the Vampire Killer bristles against his thigh at the dhampir’s approach is as good a tell as any. Even so, he must fight the natural reaction to startle from his sudden appearance.

“I’ve got it.” He says. His first two attempts to move the ogre’s body are hindered by lack of surface to grip as well as the painful stinging of his hand. His third leaves him bent over the corpse, red-faced. “I’ve got it.”

“Clearly.” Alucard replies.

“Are you going to help me or not?”

Alucard raises a slender eyebrow. “Is that a request?”

He rolls his eyes and steps back to give the other man a sweeping bow. “Oh, good sir, if only your kindness would pour forth towards me, unworthy dog as I am, and grant me the aid I do so require from the Savior from Below.”

“That’s enough.” Alucard frowns. “I will take this side.”

Together they push until the creature rolls off his sword. Sabotaging as it was, he must admit a sense of pleasure at seeing the effort even seems to press upon Alucard’s usually porcelain-perfect façade. 

“Well done.” He says as facetiously as humanly possible. “Teamwork and all that.”

“Yes.” Alucard pauses and regards him with an approximation of an emotion that’s not quite analytical, but not quite something else either. “You’re injured.”

“What?”

“Your hand.”

“Oh.” He holds up his wounded hand and chuckles mirthlessly. The cut is raw, fleshy, and stings atrociously. It will be one more scar for the collection. “Yeah, lucky me. Thing got me good.”

Alucard holds his hand out, palm facing upwards. When he doesn’t react, Alucard takes his wounded hand by carefully gripping his wrist and placing their palms together. He watches wordlessly as Alucard raises his other hand over the wound and a black-red energy marks his palm and the back of his hand with a pagan symbol he’s seen used in Dark magic before. The glyph changes twice and then fades from the back of his hand to seep off of his downward facing palm into the open wound. 

Mesmerized, he watches his body take on the same black-red glow. The blood of his enemies feels momentarily hot—like grease popping against his skin—then just as quickly soothes like an aloe from God himself. 

Without detaching their palms, Alucard uses his free hand to wipe some of the congealed blood from where it stains his chin. He thinks Alucard’s fingers might tremble against his stubble, but it could also be the magic making him lightheaded. With the blood on his fingertips, the dhampir carefully presses his fingers into the open wound. It’s a searing, agonizing pain which almost makes him pull away and backhand Alucard across the field, but the soothing sensation of the magic takes effect quickly enough and he instead watches in amazement as the wound closes as if it had never existed. 

The crimson glow around his body fades. They stand together, palms connected, neither speaking a word.  
"Is everything okay?” Sypha asks. She is well enough to walk on her own, and she can’t hide the look of concern as she approaches.

“Fine.” He murmurs. His eyes have left his own hand to focus on Alucard’s eyes. Damn it if the other man wasn’t afraid to meet his gaze head on. For all his posturing, the classy pretty boy can’t turn down a challenge. The thought makes him grin. 

“Fine.” He repeats. “Right, Alucard?”

“Yes.” Only then do their hands part. A small smile plays off Alucard’s lips, and it makes his grin widen.

“Well, we’re not dead despite our best efforts.” He laughs. The magic has clearly gone to his head. It’s stronger than any of the piss they call ale in all of Targoviste. “Let’s go to town and get a drink. First round on the Speaker!”

“Excuse me?”

“An excellent idea.” Alucard smirks and Sypha looks as if she’s going to lose her mind. “Your generosity is most kind.”

“I offer nothing!” She shouts. “You’re just as bad as Belmont!”

He laughs and laughs until his sides hurt.

 

-

 

The gentle breeze which lulls Trevor to sleep is the same which wakes him an hour later. He opens his eyes with a scowl, complaint burning at the edge of his tongue. He has trouble voicing his concern when Sypha reminds him that it was she who provided the wind in the first place, and it could just as easily have been a hurricane which interrupted his nap.

He begrudges her point.

Alucard seems pleased they agreed to wait until nightfall to continue their journey, and neither of his companions are surprised. He may be of two worlds, but it is clear to them that Alucard is made for the night. He makes an elegant picture when he offers his hand to Sypha and helps pull her to her feet. She chuckles and says something to him which Trevor doesn’t catch, and then Alucard is at his side, his hand similarly offered.

Trevor could make a pithy comment, but he’s in a fairly pleasant mood this evening. He takes Alucard’s hand in his own and joins him on his feet. Their hold lingers for a moment before Trevor saunters over to Sypha and slips his arm over her shoulders. 

“The locals say the beast in the clocktower is ferocious.” Sypha reiterates, as if they have forgotten. 

“We cannot allow it to continue to harm the innocent unimpeded.” Alucard agrees, and Trevor rolls his eyes at just how fucking dramatic these two can be.

“It’s a monster. We’ll do our thing, kill it, receive no form of praise or compensation, then move on with our lives.” He dares one of them to challenge him.

They don’t.

“We don’t do it for the praise.” Sypha reminds him. Her weak attempt to push him away when he pulls her closer is clearly for show. “We do it because it is right.”

“Right.” Trevor drawls, but then Alucard chooses to be smart and chime in with a “right” of his own and Trevor shakes his head and laughs to himself. “You did that on purpose.”

Alucard says nothing. His eyes match the twilight.

The three of them march towards the looming tower together, side-by-side, and their stride does not falter.

**Author's Note:**

> First fic in something like seven years. OT3 feels for the win.


End file.
